You do have to pay to upgrade from nero 6 to nero 7 but the nero 6 oem suite 3 is updatable to v6.6.0.18 just like nero ultra. I don't have nero 7 but from what I've read the only real advantage is better support for DL burning. Imgburn does an excellent job of burning DL media and it is FREE.
A firmware update is so that a drive can handle newer media. The manufacture of the drive tests them against newer media and figures out the best write stratagies for that particular set of media. When they get enough updates, they put out a firmware revision. Sometimes they include faster burn speeds for media. Usually all an update of firmware log from the manufacture will just state "updated to handle newer media". Software is updated for the same reason, and to fix bugs. Newer drives and media came out since the drive in question was made. Many times you will not notice a change for a firmware update, but if you are many versions behind, updating firmware could get you back to buring with media that failed to burn before. Same thing with software versions, and nero comes to mind on this one. A burn log will not recognize a drive and be part of the cause for a failed burn. Update to latests version and they are burning again. Ive seen it happen in many cases. My LG 4166B didn't have a firmware update, or was even listed at the firmware page for over 6 months. Finally they came out with a 1.01 and listed the drive. Wasn't having problems before, and am not having them with the update either.
The question is, did you have a drive that Nero wouldn't work with? Granted and older version isn't going to burn DL or do lightscribe. That is support for new features. Let's use some common sense, there's a lot of old software we don't use because of features, it's new vs old tech. The discussion was on problems that cause burn issues. MaxBurn just discussed that issue. Firmware is what deals with burn strategies and some drive functionality. Software needs updated to add support for features, but it doesn't affect the firmware of the drives. Software is for system interface, whereas firmware is onboard and drive specific.
aabbccdd ... and ImgBurn is the burn software portion of DVD Decrypter. LUK is still able to support the burn software.
